Unfortunately, losing an engine in the one car wasn’t the end of our car trouble. It was, by far, the worst of our car trouble, but, certainly not the end.

Because the engine in the other car was gone, we are down to just the one car. We’re carpooling. For people with office jobs, carpooling isn’t such a big deal. For us, it’s a bit of a problem. In order to do her job at her business, my wife needs a car to transport her clients as well as to meet her clients at their job sites or for job interviews. Not having a car is not an option for her. Because the company is still very young, they don’t have the financial ability to have a company car. Which means that they have to use their personal cars.

So, everyday, we have to coordinate my getting to work, the kids getting to daycare, and then the reverse of that at the end of the day. Still not a huge deal, right? Until you consider that my wife’s job isn’t just a 8-5 sort of job. As the owner of the business, there are meetings and things that she has to attend out of town, and after hours. Just in the first week that we were doing this, she’s had to be late to meetings so that she could leave long enough to pick up the kids, then me, and then drop us off at the curb in front of our house. An inconvenience at the least. Luckily, everyone has been pretty understanding so far. But, the longer we are without that second car, the more chance there is that she’ll have to be late to or miss a meeting with someone who won’t be so understanding. And if that happens, it means lost work for her and the company, which means lost revenue.

But, I’ve gotten off on a bit of tangent.

Because we have an increasing need to use the second car, we needed to put new tires on it. We’ve known that it would need the tires, but because it was the car that I was driving to work and back, it wasn’t a priority. I drive less than a mile total each day, so dealing with bad tires wasn’t a big deal. Now, with my wife driving the car every day and putting more mile on it in a day than I normally did in a month, the tires became a big deal. Especially in the dead of winter. So, new tires it was. A planned expense, but a rushed one that came before we were truly prepared to do it.

To finish it all off, the day after we put the new tires on the car, my wife came home to pick up a couple of things for a meeting she had later in the day. The neighbor across the street had a friend come and pick her up for an appointment, and, while backing out of the neighbors driveway, backed right into the side of the car. The better part of the drivers side door is now concave, and the drivers side mirror is shattered. Luckily, the other driver has insurance, so we’re hoping that it will pick up the damages. But, because the other car is in the shop until further notice, we’ll have to wait until it gets out to send the other one in for repairs. And we’ll be carpooling still. Just in the other car.

And that, my friends, is our January in cars. Here’s hoping for a less turbulent February. I’d say a less turbulent 2011, but I don’t want to jinx it…

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